• Visiting Professor of Finance Roosevelt University

• TA/Co-instructor U Chicago Master of Science in analytics

• Organizer of The Chicago R User Group

• Committee member R/Finance 2019

• Author of the wooldridge R package, the official R package for “Introductory Econometrics” by Jeffrey M. Wooldridge.

• Author of the neverhpfilter R package, implementing James Hamilton’s alternative to the Hodrick-Prescott filter.

• Google summer of code mentor 2019, R and Finance applications?

• Data Scientists: A Designer laptop that costs $3,000+ is a waste of your most valuable resources, time & money.

• Data Scientists: You’re already building your own Software for Data Analysis (SoDa) for several good reason, consider building your hardware for many of these same reasons.

• Management: Experienced, Full-Stack Data Pros often command salaries in the six figures. Don’t issue them the 8GB laptop, their productivity is simply too valuable to impose this bottleneck.

• Some data is private/valuable and you may not be allowed to risk it in the cloud.

AMD - Threadripper 1950X 3.4 GHz 16-Core Processor Black Friday SALE $450

ASRock - X399 Taichi ATX TR4 Motherboard: Microcenter bargain table SALE $150

Enermax - Liqtech TR4 II 280 80.71 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler Retail $140ish

Corsair - Dominator Platinum 32 GB (2 x 2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory Retail $320

These are Samsung B-Die sticks, higher quality for Threadrippers.

Added another 32GB kit a friend had laying aroud, even if lower quality Hynix

• G.Skill-Trident Z RGB 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory $0

One shouldn’t mix differing RAM. I did because its more RAM!

If mixing RAM, consult the Motherboard manual for optimal slot placement.

When mixing RAM, enter the bios on boot and adjust the frequency higher one level at a time, until boot failure resets the frequency to default (2133 MHZ in my case). One step below boot failure is your stock maximum.

Although I’m mixing 3000 and 3200 kits, the most I was able to reach was 2800 MHZ without increasing memory voltage. I’ll tune that another day…

I rely on the MSI unit for graphics, but picked up the Gigabyte unit (pictured) to experiment with GPU computation. At 2GB DDR5 RAM, it has 640 CUDA cores.

• MSI GeForce GT 710 2GB DDR3, 192 CUDA cores Retail $50ish

• Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1050, Windforce OC Video Card MC Bargin Table $75

Read/write data 6-7 times faster than SATA SSD!

• 970 Evo 250 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive Retail Sale $88

Seagate - IronWolf 8TB 3.5" 7200rpm Hard Drive Retail $233

Full Disclosure: I owned parts already and am an extreme bargain hunter!

NOTE: The ENERMAX liquid cooler isn’t suppose to fit the mid-tower. I made it work.

PC Part picker link for this build here: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Xqs9zY

This route does requires your valuable time to research and build. I’d argue this initial time investment pays dividends via future upgrades, builds, and productivity.

Still cheaper than the average silver designer laptop, and more powerful!

PC Part picker link: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Xqs9zY